Studio Albums

Studio Albums

by ehueston ♥ 2 Comments

On first glance, this title is deceiving. I understand. No, I am not getting into recording music on top of everything else. I am here today about a “project” that I tried in lockdown and want to bring back into my regular studio efforts.

Music has always been a big deal for me. I grew up with all kinds of music, and listened to a lot of it while I started to build my own creative voice. Even now I find that music has a different level of inspiration for me when it comes to my art work. However, I have found that I have been listening to a lot less music lately. With all the of TV shows, audiobooks and podcasts that we have out there, I find that music exploration takes a bit of a back seat. If I am going to listen to music it will probably be a regular playlist of songs rather than something new.

When I was in high school, I was a big ‘listen to the whole album’ person. For the younger readers, this is the generation of disc mans and CDs, coming off of original vinyl and cassette tapes. Once iTunes started letting you buy one song at a time, I lost a bit of that too which is a bummer.

Given how much music inspires me, I would obviously like to fix all of this. What I started to do in lockdown was pick an album to listen to, sit down and create for the length of it. This did two things: it got me in the studio working for a solid amount of time, and I got to listen to a whole album of music start to finish, no shuffle. Both great things.

I started with albums that I thought I had listened to, but hadn’t. Or at least hadn’t listened to in one sitting. Albums like “Purple Rain”, “Pearl”, and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”. This past week I listened to “Heart” by… ummm… Heart. I chose it because that’s the album that “If Looks Could Kill” is on, a personal favourite. Great listen.

This is something I want to continue with for so many different reasons. Explore music I already know, and eventually reach out for collaboration and recommendations for something new. There’s lots to listen to out there, and a lot of inspiration to pull out of the lyrics and melodies.

What have you been listening to lately?

Creative Prompt: 100 Day Challenge

Creative Prompt: 100 Day Challenge

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It’s that time of the year where everyone is working to build new habits, or at least break some old ones. It takes some time to build a habit and have it stick, so I propose the 100 Day Challenge for those of you who are up for it.

The 100 Day Challenge comes in all shapes and sizes, and can be used to help you build a habit you’ve been chasing. If you set a reasonable challenge and stick to it, this could be the first steps to getting you where you want to be.

As I mentioned, you want to be reasonable in your challenge. If you’ve never lifted weights before, maybe don’t start with lifting all the weights for 100 days in a row. If your goal isn’t reasonable for you to work with on a daily basis you could set yourself up for frustration and put you in a position that may have you leaving the challenge behind. As an example, when I did my challenge last year, I chose to work non-digitally at least once day for 100 days. This was reasonable because I was already creating on a daily basis, mostly digitally, and I had a lot of supplies available at home that I could use. I didn’t need to buy a lot of expensive supplies to get started.

How you execute your challenge is up to you too. This is meant to be a fun challenge, so if you overwhelm yourself the challenge will feel more like a chore rather than growth. I set myself a minimum of 20 minutes of creating with my hands everyday. Sometimes I would go over, sometimes I would be right on time, but I made sure to stick to the minimum of 20 minutes for it to count.

As I mentioned, this is supposed to be fun, not something you end up dreading doing. Be easy on yourself while you go through this. For example, if I was busy with work, course work, or just overwhelmed on a day, I didn’t pressure myself to do my 20 minutes. I skipped that day. Now I did try and set some boundaries on this, some structure helps me to keep things going. So if I skipped a day I wasn’t going to skip the following day.

If you give this a try, you’ll be amazed with what you see. At the end of my challenge I am not using my art supplies every single day, but I am getting a lot more ideas for them. I started a few projects that will keep me busy for a while still and that are inspiring more pieces like them. It’s not a daily habit, but it has adjusted my creative process and development.

What habit are you looking to build this year?

Whatever you decide to do, I hope that you enjoy this fun idea!

First Live of 2023!

First Live of 2023!

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Happy New Year lovely readers!

We were back to the live streams this week, now on Tuesdays. We had a really great session to get the year started. I was working in Fresco again, but this time revisiting a style I haven’t worked in in a while, zentangle!

I did the sketch of a hairy coo ahead of time and so I could get started right away on the vector outlines once were signed on. I didn’t want to miss a chance to get started on the zentangle part of the illustration. I was able to complete a single section before we were done. Once I “stepped back” to see the whole picture I noticed that the detail I was drawing was pretty small and might not transfer as nicely if I did the whole illustration that way.

Before the next session I am going to do a few different tests with different line weights and designs to see how I can continue with what we have so far and come out with a pattern with a little more variety, coming out to more of the effect I was hoping for.

Next week I am going to continue working on this piece, so come and join in. I go live every Tuesday at 7PM EST on Facebook, Instagram and Behance. Bring your questions, your feedback and what you’re working on right now.

To catch up on this week’s stream, check out the video here.

Project – Inktober Masks

Project – Inktober Masks

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I’m back! I took a bit of a break here in October because there was so much going on. Thanks so much for your patience through that time.

One of the things that was going on was Inktober. This was my third year playing the game and I had a lot of fun again. I fell into a bit of a theme at the start, and it really helped to bring everything together.

Putting each of the words into this theme was sometimes great, it helped the idea along, or it was a challenge, “how does one make an ego mask?”

Here’s a few of the projects that I did for this year’s theme. To see all of them, head on over to my Instagram page. Most of the posts have some Timelapse videos for them too.

Colouring Book – Order Now!

Colouring Book – Order Now!

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Hello everyone!

I have been a little quiet around here, but October has been a busy time while I prepared for the launch of this year’s colouring book!

It’s time! The colouring book is now ready for ordering. The final book will contain 20 original illustrations on 8.5X11 paper. Illustrations have been featured on my live streams throughout the year, but there are a few surprise illustrations that will be available to all who order.

Find the link here: https://hues-tones.square.site/

Quick Prompt – Inktober

Quick Prompt – Inktober

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Happy Monday everyone!

I’ve been talking about this a lot on the lives lately. Past experience has shown me that preparation is key when it comes to Inktober.

Quick background, this is something that started small and BLEW UP. Now, every October the new prompts come out and everyone who wants to participate can use the prompts for the month.

Rules are really chill, it’s even branched away from ink a bit. Create based off of your prompt each day, or every other day, or just one, or just watch from the sidelines. Everything is flexible to what works for you. Inktober also does weekly prompt throughout the rest of the year if that pace works better for you.

I will be participating, I have been prepping already and I am so stoked!

To find this year’s prompts, check out this link.

Creativity – Our Creative Voice

Creativity – Our Creative Voice

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I am going to circle back a little bit here to how all of this Creativity writing started. It comes down to the fact that we are all creative. Each and every one of us. We all start out colouring, playing dress up, pretending, and coming up with new games to play. Some of us feed that in certain ways, and others don’t, but that doesn’t mean it goes away. Everyone. Is. Creative.

Alice Lee said at MAX last year that,


“Your creative voice is like a six pack. We all have one, with the right workout you can bring it to the surface.”

It all comes with a little practice, in whatever way suits you best. The doctor practices new ways to treat their patients. The engineer practices different ways to build a stronger product. The designer comes up with a new approach on how to show their work. The parent comes up with a new way to tackle the school lunch challenge, or get the drop off schedule to work. The “non-creative” comes up with new and unique ways for how “uncreative” they are lol.

All of those things above come with practice too. No one got to where they are by accident. No one just knows how to do these things. These skills are fed and nurtured to get that person where they are today. So give yourself some credit, you’ve worked really hard to get to where you are at right now.

We all have our own way to approach creativity, and we all have that voice. Compliment yourself, say it with me, “I am creative!”.

Project – Baby Blankets

Project – Baby Blankets

by ehueston ♥ 1 Comment

More recently in my knitting career, I have taken to making baby blankets for those close to me when they are having a baby. I know we used to have knitting projects around our house from when we were little and they were always really important to us. I have the ability to schedule these kinds of projects in and I want to spend that time on something special for those that mean a lot to me.

Recently two families in my little circle have added to their households, so the knitting needles were busy to start the year.

When I build a blanket I try to keep a few things in mind: the family, the gender (if applicable), the time of the year when the little person will arrive, and anything I may have knit for them before. I also pick yarn that is easy to wash, because… babies.

This year I knit up these two blankets, and now that they are with their respective families I can finally share them with you.

The first blanket is called “Baby Blanket”. I knit it up using Cascade 220 Superwash yarn in Summer Sky Heather.

The second is the “PerfecThéo Blanket“. I knit it up using Leo & Roxy Basics in Cajun Spice.

It might seem like a lot to take on, but it is something that means a lot to me so it never feels that way. It is a really fun process to pick out the pattern and the yarn that will go to a new addition to a special family. I have enjoyed all of these so far, and I look forward to any other potential baby knit requirements that may arise.

Quick Prompt – Crazy 8s

Quick Prompt – Crazy 8s

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I am currently taking a nano degree in the field of User Interface design. One of the courses suggested a great idea that could be used across creative fields. This was initially presented as a way to get some ideas for your design layout and problem solve, but it could also be a great way to come up with any other creative idea, or even get rid of any creative block you may run into.

Here’s the steps:

  1. Fold a sheet of paper in half three times, creating 8 sections on your paper.
  2. Set a timer for one minute.
  3. Draw in one section for that one minute.
  4. When you’re drawing make sure you are drawing the most outrageous thing.
    • The complete wrong answer to your question
    • The most elaborate way to solve the problem
    • The longest way to solve the problem
    • Anything that you might think is a little “out there”

Once you are done, in under ten minutes you will have a page full of ideas. At very least it is eight bizarre ideas that are now out of your head, making room for the more practical solutions.

This could be adapted to many different mediums as well. I went with drawing because it was presented that way and is my default, but there are so many ways you can use it idea.

Give it a try, you never know what you might come up with.